Veto on FIU expansion was on the money; gift was premature

Among the $43.3 million in Miami-Dade projects vetoed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott was $5 million in state funds designated for Florida International University’s ambitious expansion plans.

And we should give Scott props for that one.

Because ity was premature. Because the expansion plans are contingent upon the Dade County Youth Fair organization, which has a solid lease for the next 70 years on the land FIU wants, moving it’s annual operation to another equal or better location — and, so far, nobody has identified one.

Maybe it’s a great idea, but there is no sign that we are any closer to an agreement where can build a few classrooms and dorms and, probably, parking lots on that land just south of the campus.

No matter what FIU President Mark Rosenberg says.

“We have other funding sources so hopefully we won’t have to postpone the expansion,” Rosenberg told Bernadette Pardo on her show “Pedaleando con Bernie” on Radio Mambi 710AM. “It will take time but it will happen.”

He called the expansion “the voters’ wish” and said he was confident it would happen. “We have the overwhelming support of our community and most of our elected officials, so we are moving forward,” Rosenberg said, according to translations from LSN Communicaitons’ new Que Pasa Miami daily media brief.

But voters never voted to boot the Youth Fair out. The wording was specific only to give FIU the same waiver from using the property as park land only in the case it got to lease the land. It’s not a mandate. It’s more like a “Yeah, sure. Why not.”

And just when and where did they start moving forward? He might be right about his elected officials who are all for it. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Mr. Giveaway” Gimenez told another reporter that he was going to write Scott a letter, thanking him for keeping Jackson Memorial Hospital funds in tact but calling attention to other cut projects, including FIU’s $5 mil.

But last time we checked, we were at the same standstill as always, with the non-profit Youth Fair group refusing to budge. There is no real reason to budget $5 million from this year’s budget for something that may not happen for another 43 years or so. Maybe they meant to spend it on further political pressure.

Youth Fair President Robert Hohenstein told Ladra Monday that the ball was in FIU’s court. The Fair is not thrilled about two new sites offered by the county in March — what is called the Beacon Lights site and the West Dade site — because it looks like they would have to split their business operations in two parts, on two locations. But Hohenstein said, they are willing to see if there’s a way it would work for them.

“While we have legal and operational concerns about the two sites, because it requires us to split our business operations, in the spirit of community and of being a good citizen, we are doing due diligence,” he said.

They got estimates from two consultants — an architect/engineering firm that will take soil samples and see if they can design something on the footprint — and an economic consultant that will tell them if it makes financial sense in the long run — and forwarded that information to Gimenez Senior Advisor Michael Spring on May 15.

“He was supposed to forward the info to the university,” Hohenstein told me. “It’s their responsibility to pay for due diligence.”

They have not heard back from FIU, he said.

But the studies can’t possibly cost $5 million.

Carlos Gimenez, Dade County Youth Fair, FIU expansion

Veto on FIU expansion was on the money; gift was premature added by Ladra on June 29, 2015
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